Met the teacher....

OK, the much awaited parent teacher meeting at Eldest's school.

The teacher wanted to talk about English. You remember that I was worried she would have to do hours and hours of useless English and then Catalan and Castillian and nothing else???? NOT TO BE!!!

She will be doing extra IT time, extra sciences, with two of the four hours, or is it five...I'm not sure. She will be doing English at her level for another class...I have sent in a package of materials for her to use, subject to the teacher's approval. She will be doing Spanish for non-Spanish speaker material that they have located for her in yet another class, and extra Catalan and Spanish in a normal class for kids her age in two others. That adds up to six English periods, but seems like that's how it is.

I am happy, and she is largely happy.

THEN I brought up the whole 'no one in Africa has a computer or cell phone' topic. The teacher looked rather horrified, but not entirely surprised. I would bet that the I.T. teacher is a bit of a rare bird shall we say. I strongly suspect that mention will be made.

The whole Germany thing...she was h.o.r.r.i.f.i.e.d. HORRIFIED. She was also very very aware of the accurate history of the entire thing. I pointed out that in many countries, such as France or Canada the teacher would probably be fired for saying that _{at best}. I also mentioned that the discussion was not from the text books, but rather a conversational aside on the part of the teacher. We are both hoping that Eldest didn't get the entire context/conversation.

I know enough of school politics to know that she cannot really say anything else to me, but I trust that she will bring it up with the powers that be and she will use the internal systems to work through what has happened. A certain amount of denial is inevitable, but the teachers in question should be more careful in the future, which is the ultimate goal; as in, "shut the f**k up if you don't have a freakin' clue what you are talking about."

I'll ask again in a bit, 'cause it just won't do.

I came away feeling OK, she seems to be knowledgeable, dedicated and straight-forward. I can work with that, indeed I really like that a whole lot, and she has certainly put in HOURS of work finding materials for Eldest and struggling with the schedule. I can't complain about that. I also strongly believe that she will look into the other two issues. She really seems to want the kids to have a good education, and what those teachers said just doesn't fit the bill.

...............later....................

Oreneta is in CANADA!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!